Monday, March 06, 2006

And for some reason this morning, I still want another one...

Yesterday was a day. A bad day. Actually, that's a lie, yesterday morning was just fine. Mary was happy, cute, chatty (in her own language of course) and fun. So happy, in fact, that I called up some friends, and we all got together for lunch at Albert's, a local breakfast restaurant. Mary was lovely for the most part for the entire time at the restaurant, in spite of it being nap time. When she started to get crabby and cry, I quickly packed her up, and took her home for a nap. All seemed well. It was a beautiful day, and while she was snoozing, I decided that it would be fun to go outside and march up and down the sidewalk in front of the house, one of her favourite pastimes. She woke up after 2 hours, and although she was a little crabby, I decided to stick to plan and take her outside. I bundled her up, took her out and plunked her down on the sidewalk. She started marching and shouting at the trees, the cars, the houses, the person walking their dog across the street...and then she decided she wanted to march right up to one of the neighbours front door. I prevented her. The screams of rage echoed through the neighbourhood. I tried to distract her, and she flung herself into a snowbank. More echoes. I finally picked her up, and hauled her back to the house as she howled, arching her back and kicking me in the ribs.

That could be the end of the story, but it isn't. She screamed all afternoon. I tried to feed her, she screamed. I tried to cuddle her, she screamed. I put her down, she screamed, I picked her up, she screamed. I put her in her crib because I couldn't handle it anymore, and she screamed until I went back in to get her, and then she screamed some more. I changed her diaper, I changed her clothes, I gave her a cookie, I gave her some juice, I read her a book. She screamed. When she wasn't screaming, she was sobbing. For 3 and a half hours, she screamed and cried. What the hell? Nothing I could do was right. I finally got her a bottle, and put her to bed, where she cried for about an hour (no screaming, just sobbing pathetically) before she fell asleep.

I don't know what got into her, but this morning she seems to be back to her cheerfull self, chasing the cats around with their toys and laughing crazily. I like her a whole lot more when she is like this. The worst thing about yesterday was that I just felt so incredibly helpless. I knew she was upset (obviously) but I had no idea why, or what I could do about it. I am looking forward to the day she speaks the same language as I do.

Hey! Less than a week left till Moustapha gets home! Yay! Even though he'll only be home for a week, I am so looking forward to it. I miss him terribly.

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